Sean Maher: Unintended consequences of Boulder's new liquor rules

In two weeks, the Boulder City Council will take up the contentious issue of alcohol and the negative impacts of over-consumption in our fair city.

For the last several months, I have been part of a Community Working Group that was formed to provide feedback on potential solutions to this age-old problem. This group includes representatives from neighborhoods, businesses, the University of Colorado, Boulder police and city staff.

As you might guess, there are disagreements among members from such diverse interests. But there is also a surprising level of agreement on some key points.

First, there are laws and regulations on the books today that are not consistently and strongly enforced. The council should discuss how to free up more resources for the police so they have the people and tools they need for adequate coverage of the problem areas of town on weekend nights.

Tougher enforcement should not be aimed only at those who drink too much, but also at the relatively few bars in town that actively encourage over-consumption. Perhaps the Boulder Liquor Authority needs greater authority and a mandate from the council to crack down on operators that make a habit of serving underage kids and promoting binge drinking.

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Another area most agreed on was house parties. While the spotlight is often on bars, private parties are a huge part of the problem. The city has to strengthen the message to both renters and landlords that there will be a price to pay for wild parties on the Hill or anywhere else in town.

The primary area of disagreement in the group concerned adding new zoning regulations for restaurants and bars. Among others, these could include spacing requirements between establishments, requiring special "late night" licenses or perhaps going through a city use review every three years.

While these ideas may sound reasonable and were offered up with good intentions, they are risky and could cause a host of unintended consequences for our thriving culinary economy. Boulder has a global reputation as a "foodie" town and our convention and visitors bureau now actively targets culinary tourists. Plus we all love living in a place with such amazing restaurants. The food, wine and cocktail purveyors in Boulder generated more than $340 million in sales last year, which added more than $12 million to city tax coffers.

That is big money with a big positive impact on our economy.

So what are these unintended consequences? As one example, let's look at the idea of spacing requirements between "late night" establishments.

The intent would be to prevent a concentration of bars in a small area. Late night is usually defined as staying open past 11 p.m. Sounds reasonable.

But think about the fact that many of our great restaurants such as Oak, Pasta Vino and Hapa Sushi are open until midnight or later on weekends, so technically could be classified as "late night."

Do we really want to send a message that Boulder does not welcome establishments like these? What would happen to the 11th and Pearl project which currently includes plans for two restaurant concepts but is very close to other "late night" establishments?

Some of the other ideas for new regulation like requiring special late night licenses and conducting use reviews every three years will make doing business in Boulder more difficult and expensive for the very businesses we want to attract and keep here.

A successful restaurateur told me recently that other cities such as Louisville, Denver and Fort Collins roll out the red carpet to encourage top quality restaurants and Boulder seems poised to do just the opposite. As he put it, "Why should we keep investing here when it is so much easier in other cities?"

So I hope the City Council considers the unintended consequences of new regulations on the vast majority of restaurants that do things right and contribute enormously to Boulder's economy and culture. Instead of creating new red tape, they should dedicate the resources necessary to enforce existing laws more effectively and focus on the irresponsible operators and house parties that cause most of the problems.

Sean Maher is the executive director of the Downtown Boulder Business Improvement District. Views expressed in this column are his own and do not reflect the position of the Business Improvement District or Downtown Boulder Inc. He can be reached at sean@dbi.org.

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